Now that commencement is over they’re set to demolish the Third Gate, or at least its eastern half, in order to manage the traffic flow out of the new parking garage behind Allen Center:

That gate has been here for a very long time. You can see it in the upper right corner in this classic image from Rice’s Formal Opening in October 1912. Quite reasonably, no one in 1912 anticipated that there would one day be a nasty multi-lane intersection at this spot whose negotiation would require more lanes coming off campus:

As the gate closest to the first dorms it naturally attracted the attention of our high-spirited early students. This was called “gate sitting” and that pretty much covers it. Sometimes it was used as a form of mild hazing, other times they seem to have done it just for a lark. This must have been taken in 1916:

Bonus: Let me tell you this–it’s a lot higher than it looks from the ground. I’ll have a bit more about Gate Number 3 tomorrow.

No, the only way to get it down is to demolish it, although they will save all the hardware as well as the granite pieces. I think the plan is to raise money to construct a copy on the new east side of the roadway.

When I showed up in 1975 the metal gate across the roadway was still in place. There was an Aggie Yell Practice at Miller Outdoor Theater that fall and I remember the gates being swung closed in the light mayhem that followed. My vague memory is that the metal gates were taken down not long after that event. If it wasn’t 1975 it was 1977 when the Owls played the Aggies at Rice Stadium again.

Minor edit: “Quite reasonably, no one in 1912 anticipated that so many people would insist on bringing their own automobile to within 100 yards of their office — or that the architects of the campus would be so accommodating to that behavior — that a gate of this size would be considered too small”